DSCC left with $20.4M in post-election debt

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is stuck with $20.4 million in post-election debt, more than twice the debt owed by its Republican counterpart and a challenge for the party as it heads into the next cycle.

The atypically high figure helps explain why the DSCC spent no money on advertisements for Sen. Mary Landrieu during the Louisiana runoff, though few expected the Democratic incumbent to be able to overcome her deficit in the polls.

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The DSCC publicly disclosed in October that it had taken a $10 million loan to try salvaging Democrats’ Senate majority in the midterms. But fresh filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the committee took out another, previously unreported $5 million loan in the final days of the election.

The DSCC outraised and outspent the National Republican Senatorial Committee by tens of millions of dollars in the 2014 cycle, although the GOP nonetheless recaptured the Senate.

But aside from its usual operations spending, the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm also made a major investment this year that added to its overall debt.

In May, the DSCC took out a long-term loan of $5.2 million to buy a house adjacent to its headquarters on Capitol Hill. The DSCC had leased the Mott House for 11 years and decided it made more financial sense to purchase it.

Now that Senate Democrats will be in the minority, they will have a tougher time raising money because its lawmakers have less power and thus less to offer some major donors. Still, Republicans will be the party on the defensive in 2016, forced to defend seven seats in states that President Barack Obama carried twice.

Obama could also help the DSCC pay off its debt with fundraisers next year.

“The DSCC outraised the NRSC last cycle by $41 million, bringing in $166.7 million for the cycle,” spokesman Justin Barasky said Tuesday. “We begin the cycle with $15 million in operations debt, $1 million less than we started the 2014 cycle with, and will have the resources we need to take back the majority in 2016.”

The NRSC reported that it had $9 million in debt and $3 million cash on hand as of Nov. 24. The DSCC had $2.2 million cash on hand as of Nov. 24.

The latest reports indicate the DSCC’s 2014 post-election debt is its largest in at least two decades, although the loan for the Mott House is an unusual part of the calculations for the committee this cycle.

In its 2012 post-election fundraising report, the DSCC was carrying $15.8 million in debt. Between 1994 and 2010, the DSCC’s post-election debt figures have ranged from $2.1 million to $13 million.

On the Republican side, the NRSC ended the 2012 cycle with $8.5 million in debt – comparable to what it has now. In 2010, it had $6 million in debt. In 2008, it was $3.5 million. In 2006, the year the Republicans lost their Senate majority, it was only $196,000.